Trigger warning: Violence, graphic descriptions.

Part One—POV: The Assassin.

The room is silent.

Still, like a breath held too long.

I am still, yet my head reels, my thoughts crash and break like waves against stone. I did that.

The knife in my hand is heavier now, as if it has taken on the weight of what I’ve done. The tip drips red—his blood.

Oh, _gods_—

My gaze falls to the floor, to him. His hair is still tousled, as if he has only just drifted into sleep. His lips, parted, as though he is about to whisper my name like he has done so many times before. His eyes—honeyed and soft—remain wide, open, unseeing. But the warmth has already begun to leave them, as it leaves the rest of him. Blood seeps from the wound in his chest, a cruel, open thing right where his heart used to beat for me.

Only moments ago—

A breath catches in my throat. My lungs refuse to expand, my voice is lost to the void between seconds.

_I had to do this._

I am a assassin, a _killer_, a blade honed for bloodshed. This was my _purpose_.

But no one ever said that falling in love would mean carving a grave into my own heart.

I have slain dozens, stolen lives as easily as I draw breath. I have torn souls from the world, ripped them from the fabric of existence. And yet, in five long years of leaving bodies in my wake, I never thought I would do this to the only one I ever loved.

A tear spills over, hot against my skin. I inhale sharply, as if I can pull back the moment, undo what has been done. But the past does not yield. It is unrelenting.

I force myself to look at him again. His arms, once golden in the sun, grow paler with every second that passes. His jaw, carved by the gods themselves, remains untouched—save for a small, insignificant nick. A cruel irony, that a love as sharp as ours leaves nothing but a wound so easily missed.

A sob rips from my throat.

How could I have done this?

_It was for the greater good_, they told me. _The world would be better without him_, they said. _He has committed horrible crimes, a traitor_, they reassured.

The world is full of absolute shi—

A knock.

Footsteps creak against the wooden floorboards behind me.

I take one last look at him—_at my lover_—though I never told him, though he will never know.

Then, I move.

Silent as a wraith, I slip into the chimney’s darkness, pressing myself against the cold stone. I wait.

And when I hear the gasp, when the realization dawns upon the one who

finds him—

Despite myself, despite the agony threading through my ribs like a second blade, as if I have turned the knife on myself

instead of him—

_I smile._

Because I am not just a monster.

I am the thing they fear in the dark, the shadow that lingers, the hand that delivers death with a whisper and a smile.

I am the blade of the queen.

And gods _help them all._